Lenovo L215p LCD Widescreen Monitor

At a Glance

The L215p displayed fine text and nice colors, but lacks a DVI port, including only HDMI and VGA connections.

Lenovo's latest widescreen display, the L215p, measures a unique 21.5 inches diagonally, making it slightly more squat than your run-of-the-mill 22-inch LCD monitor. But that size gives it a true 16:9 aspect ratio, and with an included HDMI connection and 1920 by 1080 native resolution, the L215p is optimized for displaying high-definition content.

It should also do a fine job displaying HD movies: In PC World Test Center image-quality tests, the L215p showed sharp text and accurate colors. It also handled our motion tests well, displaying little noticeable jittering. We did find one stuck pixel on the display we tested, which was visible on an all-black screen.

The L215p has a full range of multimedia features, including a Webcam at the top of the screen, three USB ports, microphone and headphone jacks, and a built-in speaker bar that runs along the bottom of the display. The speaker produced adequate volume, though movie and gaming enthusiasts would likely want to purchase an external set.

You can access the display's on-screen controls only after running your finger along the right portion of the bottom edge of the bezel. It took a while for us to determine that the controls were touch-sensitive and could be found in that manner. Once the controls appeared on the screen, their menu structure seemed highly unintuitive, making it difficult to determine which button to press to make changes.

Along with its HDMI connection, the L215p has a VGA port, but no DVI port. We used the monitor with a DVI-to-HDMI cable; if your PC lacks an HDMI connection, you'll likely have to do the same, unless you want to use the lower-quality VGA connection. The monitor can tilt and swivel fairly easily, but it can't move up or down, or pivot.

Given its plethora of extra features, fine image quality, HD-oriented aspect ratio, and HDMI connection, the L215p should satisfy multimedia and movie fans who want a monitor optimized for the next generation of entertainment. And at $254, it's a good deal, too.